AL Teen Missing in Aruba

[hottytoddy]

I know everyone keeps saying why did her friends let her go but I mean she made the decision to do it. Her friends are not her parents. Now they could've discouraged her...but how many times have your friends told you something was a bad idea and you shrugged it off.

You know the scary thing...I mean young people meet other young people on vacation all the time. When I was on Senior trip my friend and I met some guys and they hung out with us all week...and we never thought twice about it. It may have been a bad idea, but when you meet other young people (who seem like other normal teenagers) you never think about stuff like that.

Maybe she was too trusting of these people that she met but how can you ever really tell?

The buddy system is a good idea...but if that's the case then we could be looking at 2 missing teens. It really makes you question your own judgement. I mean I can think of PLENTY of people I know that this could've happened to.

[bekibug]

Originally posted by madmax
I think she is probably turning tricks in Mexico. I figure there is a big demand for blonds down there. She probably didn't leave voluntarily.

True...the talking heads were saying the other day that at this point it's likely she's either dead or sold into the sex trade.

The Brookies (and really all the BHM area kiddies) on campus are going nuts over this.

[DeltAlum]

I saw this in ShopTalk which is a broadcast journalism bulletin board.

I think it was written by a St. Louis radio personality.

While I think it's harsh to lump all 18 year olds together, I'm afraid this does fit some...

"RE: Missing In Aruba at 18

In the Natalee Holloway story, here's something that no one else has brought up.

Why would any parent allow their kid to go on one of these trips? A vacation like this is nothing more than a spring break trip, which until a few years ago was something you did in college. Now, 18 year olds are going off just days after graduating high school, a hundred at a time, to a place where the drinking age is 18, and they're a little lax on checking IDs at the bar.

It's essentially beach at day, party at night, and their parents don't see the potential for problems. I don't care if your kid is an honor student, a "good kid." That's what they've said about Natalee, and she was out partying at a local bar until 1:30am, when she left with three local guys she had just met, and the missing-girl story began.

Why would she do that?

Because 18 year olds are idiots. I was, you were, they all are. At 18, you're told you're "an adult," and given some adult responsibilities, but you don't really know what it's like to live in the grown-up world yet. You think you do, you think you know everything, but you don't. Many of these kids are away from home for the first time without adult supervision -- I don't care how many chaperones there are, they can't keep track of a hundred 18 year olds! -- and, even if they're not looking for trouble, it will find them.

Given the chance, your average teen wants to act cooler, richer, and older (which is not the same as more mature) than they really are. A co-worker pointed out to me Tuesday that trips to places like this used to be activities reserved for the upper-class or for adults who had saved for years. But now we have an entire middle-class generation of kids who have been influenced by MTV's
outrageous spring break antics and the lifestyles of Paris Hilton and her ilk, with parents willing to pay the freight so their kids aren't left out.

That's not to say that kids shouldn't go away at 18, whether it's off to college, or to do some domestic or international travel, or to enjoy a vacation. But when you send your kid off to a place where there's very little to do besides hang out in the sun until night falls and the parties begin, you're being naive to think that your little darling won't get caught up in the "fun."

Or don't you remember what you were like at 18?

Paul Harris"

[Dedante]

I just talked to someone on Aruba and the case is causing quite a bit of commotion there as well. Locals and tourists are helping in the search for the missing girl and everyone is feeling for her family and friends.

Don't know if you have ever been there but it is generally considered one of the safest places in the Caribbean. Nothing much ever happens on Aruba. I have been there quite a few times and I have never felt unsafe. It is called "One Happy Island" for a reason!

I guess it shows that bad things can happen in good places too.

I am really concerned though, it is such a small island, with only so many places to hide so you would think that if she were alive, they would have found her by now.

Not ready to give up hope just yet though.....

[kddani]

High school kids have NO business being at Carlos 'N Charlie's until 1:30. There's an incredible amount of drinking that goes on there, lots of flashes of nudity and general debauchery.

Carlos 'N Charlie's is fun, but I was 23 when I was there. Not graduating high school

I don't know who the chaperones were, but you can bet the girls parents will be trying their damndest to have them also held liable

[WCUgirl]

Arrested teen had met Holloway day before she vanished

Friday, June 10, 2005 Posted: 9:05 AM EDT (1305 GMT)

ORANJESTAD, Aruba (CNN) -- A teen being held in connection with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway met the Alabama student at her hotel's casino a day before she vanished, according to police.

Juron Van Der Sloot -- the teenage son of an Aruban judge -- was among three people taken into custody early Thursday. Two brothers, Satish and Depak Kalpoe, were also arrested.

Authorities have said the three were the last ones seen with Holloway, 18, when she left Carlos 'N Charlie's, a popular nightclub in Oranjestad, about 1:30 a.m. on May 30.

Also Thursday, authorities said the investigation has spread beyond Aruba -- with police forces in nearby South America contacted. They did not say where those forces were or why they were contacted.

Police said Van Der Sloot met Holloway on May 29 at the casino in the Holiday Inn where she was staying with classmates who had traveled to Aruba to celebrate their high school graduation.

Holly Brown, a friend who accompanied Holloway to Aruba and was at Carlos 'N Charlie's the night she disappeared, said she found Van Der Sloot to be "very different."

"We noticed he was in the casino all by himself," she told CNN in Alabama. "He lied about his age, and when we went on the (Carlos 'N Charlie's) Web site, we found pictures of him there one week before at the same place, wearing the same clothes."

Police interviewed Van Der Sloot and the two brothers shortly after the disappearance was reported, but they waited until Thursday to take them into custody. At their homes Thursday, police confiscated various items, including a computer and a car believed to have been the one Holloway left the nightclub in.

Link

---------------

New article (didn't want to post three times in a row ):

Ala. Teen Went to Aruba Beach With Student
By MICHAEL NORTON, Associated Press Writer
46 minutes ago

ORANJESTAD, Aruba - A missing Alabama honors student went to an Aruban beach with a Dutch teen the night she disappeared and had sexual contact with him in the car, a defense lawyer representing one of five men arrested in the case said Friday.

Natalee Holloway, 18, drove with the Dutch teen and two Surinamese brothers to Arashi beach, on the northern part of the island, Noraina Pietersz, a court-appointed lawyer representing one of two former security guards arrested in the case, told The Associated Press. Pietersz read from testimony given to police by the two brothers last week.

Five people — the Dutch student, two Surinamese brothers and two former security guards — have been arrested in the disappearance of Holloway, who was last seen in the early hours of May 30. She was in Aruba celebrating her graduation from high school in Mountain Brook, Ala.

Holloway disappeared hours before she was to take a flight home. Police found her passport and packed bags in her hotel room.

Authorities have not said Holloway was a victim of foul play and have not ruled out any possibilities, including that she may have drowned.

"We think she's alive," said Holloway's stepmother, Robin Holloway, who added that authorities told the family they had expanded the search to other nearby islands.

After Holloway and the three men went to the beach, they drove her back to her hotel, where she stumbled and was approached by a man wearing a security guard uniform, another defense attorney, David Kock, told the AP.

His comments came after Holloway's stepfather, George "Jug" Twitty, told the AP she met the Dutch student in the casino of her hotel and flirted with him two days before she disappeared.

Aruba Prime Minister Nelson Oduber said finding Holloway was the "No. 1 goal" on the Dutch Caribbean island, where volunteers, police, coast guard officers and Dutch soldiers continued their search Friday.

Twitty told the AP he met with the Dutch teen and Surinamese brothers early Tuesday, and they told him they were with his stepdaughter at Carlos'N Charlie's nightclub restaurant Sunday night, shortly before she disappeared.

The men said Holloway had been dancing and flirting with the Dutch teen, the son of a high-ranking Dutch judicial official in Aruba, before they dropped her at the hotel, Twitty said.

She was drunk and stumbled when she tried to get out of the car, the boys told him. When the Dutch teen tried to help her she refused, saying, "I can stand on my own," the men told Twitty.

He said the meeting was arranged by the police.

Link to rest of article

[James]

As far as why would someone leave the bar with a total stranger and why would her friends allow it . . . ?

Thats a little naive.

I know literally hundreds of girls that have done it and no one ended up dead or hurt. The worst they usually had was a one night stand they could relate to their friends as a good story later.

And lets be honest, unless you are a paranoid, if you stop your friend from leaving with a guy at a bar its usually to prevent her from getting laid. For whatever reasons girls like to do that.

[honeychile]

James, the key phrase that is in your statement is "a total stranger". Natalee left with three total strangers. A key phrase that's missing from your statement is "While in a foreign country". I don't care that Aruba is Where Happiness Lives!

A good friend - be the friend of the age of consent or not - would have AT LEAST asked her if she knew what she was doing and checked to see how drunk she was - and stopped her if she wasn't in control of her faculties.

Put this all together, and you have a drunk high school girl, in a foreign country, who left with three men. This is NOT a formula for a Romantic Evening to Remember!!

Well, one of the suspects has apparently confessed to killing Natalee.

The girl's dead.

ETA: CNN's taking back what they initially reported -- saying that one of the suspects just said that "something bad happened to the girl".

Still, she's probably dead.

[lifesaver]

Originally posted by honeychile
James, the key phrase that is in your statement is "a total stranger". Natalee left with three total strangers. A key phrase that's missing from your statement is "While in a foreign country". I don't care that Aruba is Where Happiness Lives!

A good friend - be the friend of the age of consent or not - would have AT LEAST asked her if she knew what she was doing and checked to see how drunk she was - and stopped her if she wasn't in control of her faculties.

Put this all together, and you have a drunk high school girl, in a foreign country, who left with three men. This is NOT a formula for a Romantic Evening to Remember!!

I gotta agree with HC on this.

Seriously, I'm a grown ass adult man and I wouldnt even get in the car with some locals. I dont care if they were offering cake, a local tour, and all the sex I could want. Ya just dont do it. SIsnt her parent sa warn her about thi sstuff? So now its the US governments fault or concern becasue THEY dint educate hear about precautions she should take, like not being a dumb ass. So if I am a fucking tard, I should expect the government to send 200 FBI agenst to start the search for me.

Seriously, and this is the harshest thing I have ever said on GC, its darwinsm and she got what she deserved. If she was dumb enough to get in a car with some locals, than whatever happend is her fault. EXCEPTION: if the toxicology results show she was drugged than I can understand. Booze is her fault tho. I've been hella drunk. Thats no excuse. We go to mexico here all the time and ya take extra percautions because its another country. Ya really use the buddy system, ya make friends and dont leave anywhere without your partner. If stupid ass alabamans and their inept chaperones couldnt figure that out, they had no business taking students there.

Hooker is dead. Its her parents and chaperones fault.

I'l be in Cancun in November and AGAIN, am a grown ass man and wouldnt get in a car with a local. I'm not a fucking IDIOT.

[cash78mere]

i had a good friend in high school and college who wouldn't listen to any of her friends. we would go out at night, and then when we were ready to leave, we'd realize she was nowhere to be found because she had left with a guy. there was no way for us to get through to her. she made us worry one too many times so we stopped going out with her. i still speak with her, but we haven't gone out together in several years. natalie may have been the same way--headstrong and stupid.

i really don't understand why high school seniors need to go to aruba as a senior trip, especially with only a handful of chaperones. haven't they ever heard of disney world or the beach??

[PM_Mama00]

Originally posted by cash78mere


i really don't understand why high school seniors need to go to aruba as a senior trip, especially with only a handful of chaperones. haven't they ever heard of disney world or the beach??

Not sure how old you are (that might've come out rude but I didn't mean it that way) but things are different nowadays. In 1990 my brother went to Daytona Beach for spring break. In 1999 I went to Jamaica (Ocho Rios) with 8 other girl friends and no chaperones. But we were all smart and listened to people's advice... DO NOT leave teh resort at night and be careful of the locals. There was one local who the resort people let hang out there and we hung out with him every night and he would even tell us that peopel would be stupid and leave the resort and end up getting raped or killed.

In a way, I hope that she was drugged and wasn't just stupid for leaving with locals.

[AznSAE]

for a girl who was in the honors program and given a full ride to a university, she was not too smart. they were saying that she was spotted kissing in a car and doing "other" things.

this morning on the news, it looks like there is a confession that she was killed.

[Munchkin03]

Originally posted by honeychile
James, the key phrase that is in your statement is "a total stranger". Natalee left with three total strangers. A key phrase that's missing from your statement is "While in a foreign country". I don't care that Aruba is Where Happiness Lives!

Why does it matter that she was in a foreign country? I wouldn't do what she did in my own hometown--Mayberry on the Gulf of Mexico. You don't go off with strangers anywhere. True, her guard should have been up considerably in another country, but a young woman should be careful at all times.

Originally posted by cash78mere
i really don't understand why high school seniors need to go to aruba as a senior trip, especially with only a handful of chaperones. haven't they ever heard of disney world or the beach??

Like PM Mama said, things have changed a lot. The HS I graduated from just sponsored a trip to Cancun for the graduates--not something that happened for my class! Also, Mountain Brook, where Natalee is from, is the most affluent area of Birmingham. I wouldn't be surprised if all of these kids were all very well-traveled.

[33girl]

I'm sorry if this has been answered before, but was this trip affiliated with the school in any way? Or did a gang of people just get together, decide to go and some parents decided to be chaperones?

If it's the latter, I hope that they stop referring to it as a "senior trip" - it makes it look like it was sanctioned by the school when it wasn't. And not that teachers are perfect but I would guess they have more experience chaperoning a bunch of kids than some random parents who were probably having some fun themselves. This was a disaster waiting to happen.